May 2021
- Dev Conference Season Is Back: What to Watch at I/O and Build
A preview of Google I/O and Microsoft Build, both landing this month with a heavy focus on AI-assisted and low-code developer tools.
- Crew-1 Comes Home: A Nighttime Splashdown for the History Books
SpaceX's Crew Dragon Resilience splashed down off Florida early this morning, ending NASA's first long-duration commercial crew mission.
- Epic v. Apple Goes to Trial, and Python 3.10 Quietly Hits Beta
The Epic Games v. Apple antitrust trial opened in Oakland today, the same week Python 3.10.0b1 shipped and froze the language's next feature set.
- Why PS5 and Xbox Series X Restocks Keep Selling Out in Minutes
The chip shortage keeps next-gen console supply far below demand, so restocks vanish in minutes and scalpers profit.
- Starship SN15 Sticks the Landing
SpaceX's SN15 prototype flew a ~10km hop and landed intact, finally breaking Starship's landing curse after four prior losses.
- Yahoo Changes Hands Again, and Yahoo Answers Finally Closes the Book
Verizon completed its $5 billion sale of Yahoo and AOL to Apollo Global Management, and Yahoo Answers is shutting down after 16 years.
- Resident Evil Village Sells 3 Million Copies in Four Days
Capcom's Resident Evil Village shipped over 3 million units in its first four days, tying Resident Evil 2 as the series' third-fastest seller.
- A 21-Ton Rocket Just Fell Out of the Sky, and Nobody Was in Control
The core stage of China's Long March 5B made an uncontrolled reentry into the Indian Ocean, reviving old debates about how we launch big rockets.
- Colonial Pipeline Goes Dark: A Ransomware Gang Just Hit Critical Infrastructure
DarkSide ransomware forced Colonial Pipeline to shut down the pipeline supplying 45% of East Coast fuel, and reports say the company paid a $4.4 million ransom.
- Fitbit, Garmin, or Apple Watch: Where Fitness Wearables Stand Right Before I/O
A look at the fitness-tracker landscape ahead of Google I/O, where Wear OS is expected to get a Fitbit-powered overhaul.
- Ingenuity Just Got Promoted From Tech Demo to Scout
NASA's Mars helicopter hit a new altitude and distance record on flight five, then moved into an operational role supporting Perseverance.
- Tesla Drops Bitcoin, and Crypto Gets a Reality Check
Elon Musk's announcement that Tesla will stop accepting Bitcoin over its carbon footprint sent crypto markets tumbling today.
- Why ARM-Based Laptops Are Suddenly Interesting
Six months after the M1 MacBooks, Windows chipmakers are signaling real interest in ARM laptop silicon — here's why that matters.
- China Lands Zhurong on Mars, Nailing It on the First Try
China's Tianwen-1 mission touched down the Zhurong rover in Utopia Planitia, making China only the second country to operate a rover on Mars.
- Colonial Pipeline Is Running Again, But the Pain Isn't Over
Colonial Pipeline restarted operations after nearly a week offline, but gas shortages across the Southeast are taking days longer to clear.
- The Never-Ending PS5 and Xbox Series X Restock Chase
Seven months in, PS5 and Xbox Series X restocks are still rare and unpredictable, and AMD says the chip shortage will drag into 2022.
- A Phase 3 Trial Just Made the Case for MDMA as Medicine
A new Nature Medicine study found MDMA-assisted talk therapy sharply reduced PTSD symptoms, adding momentum toward eventual FDA approval.
- Windows 10X Is Officially Dead
Microsoft confirms it has cancelled Windows 10X after 18 months, folding its ideas into other Windows and Microsoft 365 products.
- Nvidia's New GPUs Are Deliberately Bad at Mining. That's the Point.
Nvidia's new Lite Hash Rate RTX 3080, 3070 and 3060 Ti cards cut Ethereum mining speed in half to try to get GPUs back into gamers' hands.
- Material You Wants to Paint Your Whole Phone the Color of Your Wallpaper
Google I/O's keynote introduced Android 12 and Material You, a design system that builds your phone's color palette from your wallpaper.
- Google I/O's Wearable Surprise: Wear OS Gets a Fitbit-Powered Reboot
Google detailed a rebuilt Wear OS made with Samsung and infused with Fitbit health tracking, aiming squarely at Apple Watch.
- Zhurong Rolls Onto Mars, and China Joins the Rover Club
China's Zhurong rover drove off its landing platform onto Utopia Planitia, kicking off a 90-sol mission to study Mars geology and hunt for ice.
- Google's MUM Wants to Kill the Multi-Search Habit
Google unveiled MUM at I/O, an AI model spanning ~75 languages built to answer complex search questions that used to take several separate searches.
- The GPU Shortage Isn't Your Imagination — Miners Are Buying a Quarter of the Supply
Crypto miners reportedly bought about 25% of all GPUs made in early 2021, worth roughly $500 million in Q1 alone, deepening the gamer GPU drought.
- Microsoft Build 2021: Low-Code Meets GPT-3, and Linux GUIs Come to Windows
Build 2021 kicks off with Power Fx, a GPT-3-powered formula language for Power Platform, plus native Linux GUI app support in WSL.
- Arm's Armv9 Is the Biggest Architecture Shift in a Decade
Arm unveiled its Armv9 CPU lineup — Cortex-X2, A710, and A510 — pointing at 2022's flagship phone chips.
- Amazon Just Bought a Hollywood Studio (and the Whole James Bond Library)
Amazon's $8.45 billion deal for MGM gives it thousands of films and TV shows and raises big questions about the future of streaming content.
- Mars Is Getting Crowded
Perseverance, Ingenuity, and China's new Zhurong rover are all active on Mars at once, with UAE's Hope watching from orbit.
- Console Wars 2021: The Exclusives Drought Nobody Wants to Talk About
Seven months into the PS5/Series X era, Sony and Microsoft are both light on first-party exclusives, and each is compensating differently.
- Visual Studio 2019's Quiet Build 2021 Win: Git and GitHub Actions Baked In
A look at the Visual Studio 2019 productivity update from Microsoft Build 2021 and why its Git and container tooling matters more than the AI headlines.
- Another Month, Another Starlink Launch
SpaceX closes out May with a Falcon 9 Starlink mission as the constellation passes 100,000 user terminals across 14 countries.